itch.io

Hello there!

Wanted to ask: how much pre-jam prep is allowed when it comes specifically to the creation of The Wheel™ and/or lockpicking games themselves?

For instance, I would want to try and make a game with both The Wheel™ and the lockpicking minigame, and was planning to use the Unity templates for both, but noticed they're both using different input systems, making that not really possible out-of-the-box. So was planning to either rework The Wheel™ to work with the new input system, to match the lockpicking template, or make my own instead. However, I don't want to do either of those if it'd be considered against the spirit of the jam, so I'm asking here!

Thank you for your time, whoever ends up answering!

fishy

I can always appreciate the sound of blocks going "thoom". ;)

Nice work, Wei! Simple concept executed well, with added joy from having a judgemental Doge stare me in the face while I desperately try to destroy the planet in the fastest and most questionably profitable way. :p

Also, 90% sure I heard that cheering sound effect as the same one from One Click Sandwich Hero. My ears could be deceiving me, but it fits the vibe, so I approve either way. :D

Glad you managed to get something done on time, buddy!

I like the vibe that this game is going for - the art style is pretty neat, and I love a good bit of Bosca Ceoil music when I hear it. :p

I will say that even after reading the instructions on the game's start-up page, I was still pretty confused about what I was actually supposed to do. Eventually, I got in the rocket, and was just able to blast off and keep going until it said I'd won. Maybe I was just being a bit of a smooth brain, but I was pretty unsure of what to do from start to finish. More visual clarity on what could be interacted with - and in what way - would go far.

Overall, neat lil game!

I have never been more stubborn about getting a hole-in-one every time than I have been when trying to mess with the physics of your game. I love things with outer-space themes, because I do be a bit of a nerd for that stuff, and this is no exception. I can always appreciate a good Golf... In Space! game when I see one.

The sound design helps sell a nice chill vibe when playing this, and the art is pretty simple but effective. Everything's nice and visually readable, so there's no real confusion about where you can and can't yeet the golf ball.

Not much else to say - it's a simple concept for a game, and it's well-executed. Nice work!

A very simple game, but it has a lot of comedic potential to it! For one, the contrast of the 2D art of the boot doing The Kickening and the 3D world around you made me laugh more than it should've when I... booted up the game.

Secondly, the fact that the boot can kick ghosts regardless of distance adds extra hilarity to me, because (even though I dunno the development behind your entry, so it may have just been a programming difficulty thing) it very much gives off vibes of "I am a two-dimensional being, thus I give approximately zero fucks about your concept of "depth". If I wanna give you a boot up the ass, you're getting a boot up the ass, and I ain't walkin' "closer" to you to give it."

Basically, add more polish, some fast-paced music, and some great comedic sound effects, and you could have a really funny and simple comedy game here. Nice work!

I have a deep love in my heart for the art style of these ghosts, so first off, very good work on that. Also really liked the story comic at the beginning of the game. So kudos to those!

I personally have an abysmal memory, so I kind of suck at your game (yes, even remembering three things is too much for my scrawny brain cells), but I loved the vibe of it so much that I found myself making up silly drink names to go alongside what I was mixing. ("One blueberry fingersnap, coming up!")

Your game is relatively simple, but I'm a sucker for people-pleasing and these fictional ghosts are no exception. Everything works together in this game to sell the vibe. Great job!

Love the vibes this game gives off. Got a nice eerie atmosphere to it, aided in no small part by the sound and art design working in tandem, so nice work on that!

I do be out here having, like, two brain cells, so I ended up accidentally pressing to restart the game when I meant to swap worlds multiple times, and I also spent a long time staring blankly at the third level and not knowing how to progress. While both of those are most definitely my problem, the former could be a user-experience thing to look into.

The latter I ended up... getting around by not even doing the level and just cheesing it with the fact the door isn't closed when you swap between the worlds and I just rapid-swapped until I was through it. And then proceeded to do the exact same exploit on the fourth level.

I agree with ZCaptainz3 below about the desire to know where a swap can happen, as it just kind of felt like trial and error with rapid-pressing the button until a swap happened. Some extra sound design punch could also work for increasing the difference in feel between the two worlds. Even if you just did, for instance, background music that goes in reverse when you swap.

Overall, neat concept and pretty well-executed!

I'm a sucker for space-themed stuff, so this is definitely no exception. Loved the vibes and the sound design of the game a hell of a lot, so nice work on that!

I don't know how intentional the difference was, but on the first level, the gravitational pull of the planets were pretty strong and kept you well-grounded, whereas on the second level, pressing a key to move for too long sent you yeeting across space. I'm curious as to whether the gravitational pull was set per-level or per-planet because of that. :p

I agree with Steeley below that the fuel system could probably do with some fine-tuning, though not necessarily needing to be replaced with large bursts. Like, it's outer space, it's definitely supposed to feel floaty. It all kind of depends on how much emphasis you want to put on the initial aiming of the jump to get off the planet, and how generous you want to be with using the fuel system for both correction and direction.

Art style is pretty neat - little bit mixed at times with the hard black outline edge and flat colouring of the player and satellites but the more geometric and flashy looks of the planets. I like both styles, don't get me wrong, just think more could have been done to make them blend a bit more.

Overall, nice work, I really liked it!

Simple little game, I liked it! I know you've said that you're planning on improving this game and making an app out of it, so I'll give my honest feedback and critiques:

• Minor Bug: When there were two "grims" on the same side, one of them hit me and it killed me, but the second one also managed to hit me, causing the death/hit sounds to play again.
• Game Feel: Depending on what you're going for in terms of this, you could probably improve the feeling of going back and forth by adding some "gravity-like" acceleration to switching between the walls.
• Sound: I like the goofy-but-spooky music of the game, as it adds a nice frantic feel to it, and I think it could be pushed further by adding some kind of "rapid-stepping"/"running" sound for while the character is running on the wall. Similarly, a dramatic "boom"/"thud" sound could be added to when the character lands on the wall to add impact and sell the vibe of just how bad they wanted to get to the other side.
• Art: Because copyright, replacing the Doom Eternal art for the background would be a good place to start. Beyond that, there's a fair bit of style-mixing going on at the moment. You've got the more bare-bones pixel art style of the grim enemy, the vector art style of the character, and the colourful pixel art style of the moving floor. Picking one style and running with it would make for better visual clarity and cohesion.
• UI: Goes without saying, but stylising the UI to fit your game via typography and matching the colour scheme with the rest of your game would go far.

Keep in mind, with everything said above, I DID enjoy the game! If it seems like I'm tearing you to shreds, I don't mean to, but I made a similar game myself last year for a different game jam, so I'm speaking from a place of experience. Nice work!

Like this game's take on a classic idea! Took me a little while to figure out how to actually build towers, since that wasn't covered in your How To very clearly, but I liked the gameplay once I knew how.

The art style was neat, and I laughed when I caught a glimpse of a death animation. Though I completely forgot to switch back and forth for a long time, I was still able to survive with towers focused in Heaven.

Then it told me I'd won and could go to the next level, but clicking the button did nothing. I just assumed that was a "ran out of time to finish" thing and left it there, but neat game!

Neat concept! The uncanny valley art style of the characters made it all look a bit creepy (in a good way). A bit more could be done to distinguish the non-solid background objects from the foreground objects you can collide with, but I liked it nonetheless.

And I've gotta echo what was said below about the enemies being a bit too strong, especially with there not being much indication as to when they'll do damage.

Sorry to hear that it crashed on you. If you can reproduce it, or tell me what caused it, then I can patch it once the Jam's over.

Thank you, that's very kind of you to say! It was very much an experimental first-time use of Bitsy. :p

Tha

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ou!

Thanks, buddy, I'm glad you liked it!

Thank you very much for giving the game a shot, I appreciate it! I'm trying to work on ways to show what's going on while maintaining a lot of the feeling of mystery in the post-jam update. Cameras are certainly an interesting idea - I could try to explore that further if the update is well-received. Thanks again for your time!

A very punchy experience. For some reason, that's the main phrase I can think of to describe it. I like the background music, and the overall aesthetic of the game is just really nice! I found it slightly difficult to notice the orange bar at first, considering its scale in comparison to the ones at the sides of the screens, but I can imagine that bar being a strange one to find appropriately prominent screen space for. I also liked the use of colour here, and the visual effects look great! Of course, I like the gameplay as well - I can honestly say that I've not seen too many games that have done this concept, and I liked what I played of it. Apologies that my comment doesn't have much substance, I'm very tired, but nice work! :D

Absolutely loved this experience. The full use of the jam page is a fourth-wall break I really appreciate, and the puzzles that I managed to do were a joy to figure out. Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the mysterious portal, only because when I did enter all the words and hold down D to try and move on, nothing happened. Dino just kind of got stuck at the side of the screen, and I had no idea if it was a bug or a feature, but I couldn't move further forward. Definitely an interesting game, and I admit I just have a soft spot for games with this aesthetic and writing style in general. Overall, a great experience, and one I'm very likely to come back to when I'm less tired to try and finish properly and give the attention it deserves (so I'm avoiding reading other comments for spoilers' sake :P). Great work!

I didn't get very far in this game but I'm gonna blame it on my empathy response and totally not because I absolutely sucked at timing the jumps. In any case, this game definitely toyed with my emotions, but reading the title and still playing kind of signed me up for it. The game's well-polished, and I liked the choice of music, as well as the choice to speed it up to represent anxiety getting worse. Definitely had panic attacks that felt like that in the past! Can also say that about the sporadic words-everywhere effect of being on your last hit! Overall, best game, also worst game, felt like reliving a panic attack, 10/10 I hate it. (If that last bit's hard to translate, I don't blame you - I gave a good rating, to clarify. :P) Nice work!

That's very kind of you to say, thank you! Likewise, I hope you're improving and navigating through recovery well! The loneliness can feel horrendous at times, so if you are still struggling (which I'm not hoping you are, obviously), remember all the replies to this game like mine... and also seek out the help that you need. Don't let yourself suffer in silence again, alright? Take care!

A truly great experience, and feeling very well-polished for a jam game! The graphical style manages to combine both a modern pixel art feel and the aesthetic of old Windows versions very nicely, and the animation on the virus is great. The sound design here is also very nice - sound effect and music choices here are well-done. Gameplay had plenty of variety, even if my timing wasn't very great and I couldn't beat every level because of it. All in all, a great game, good work!

I can always appreciate a good werewolf game, and I like the stealth mechanic you have going on here! I will admit that I often struggled to get the blood vial, but that aside, I liked the layout of the whole mansion-feeling place. The visuals and music tie nicely together with the vibe of everything that's going on - the music gives a sense of anxiety and mild hopelessness. Additionally, I like that you gave options for alternate player skins - that's a neat thing for you to manage to get done with a jam game! Overall liked the game, nice job! :D

As someone who went through quite a lot of the years spent in High School and College with sleep problems, depression, and anxiety to the point of having panic attacks, I really like what you did here with the game's narrative. I came in not knowing what to expect just reading the title and seeing the cover image, but hoo boy that hit harder than it probably should've. The art style is lovely, and the choices of music fit the mood of the scenes they were used in quite well. Well-written and a pleasure to play/read through. Great work!

A certainly sombre feel to this game, but I liked the vibe of it overall! The background ambience helped to sell the mood quite well, and the visual aesthetic of both the player character(s?) and the enemies worked nicely with the gameplay. A projectile attack of insults being thrown at you was certainly an experience. Overall, a neat piece of work!

This game definitely has a very strange and unique vibe going on with it, but honestly I kind of love it. Being forced to play someone who is a total asshat, and being presented the illusion of even semi-reasonable options but forcing the player to be the assest of hats is a fun narrative and gameplay experience I signed myself up for. The music is nice, too, and fits the odd feel of the game quite nicely. I mean, the sound design overall is pretty top-notch. Nice work! :D

This is a really solid experience! I fully had to get into the zone and try out different strategies for getting rid of the virus - waiting until I had typed x-amount of a code before I try to get rid of them, hammering the button as soon as I saw them land, letting myself stop to get the viruses gone by memorising where I got to so I wouldn't accidentally delete too much... tried it all! Fingers hurt a little bit from button mashing. :P But seriously, I really liked this! The sound design was solid, and the visuals fit the mood of the game and its pace nicely. Solid work, nice job! :D

A pretty simple game when it comes to the gameplay, but I love the stylistic way it's done! The audio and the combination of the doodle-style graphics plus compressed real life graphics really helps to sell the vibe. Liked the sound effect for clicking off of a window, and the synthesised voices were funny as well! This game has a solid comedic feel to it. Nice work!

I like this idea for a game! Being a compulsive killer trying to just get through a day of work is an interesting dynamic, and a fun experience to play through. I liked the art style for the game, too; I think it suits quite nicely, and I really liked the game over jingle for some reason. Overall, I could see a fuller story panning out about this character's life and what their experience is with trying to control themselves on a daily basis. Nice job!

Definitely keep trying, buddy! Delta time is a useful thing to keep in mind, but I don't blame you if you forgot to add it - I do that sometimes. And I do like the style you were going for! Maybe it would've just worked a bit better if things were a little slower. :P Keep making games! :D

A pretty neat concept for a game! I like the idea of the changing movement speeds, but I do think the game would benefit from some kind of heads up for when the speed is changing, even if just a sound byte. In any case, I think the music fits the mood fairly well! Definitely room to expand on the gameplay here, if you want to, post-jam. Nice job!

I like this game's visual aesthetic and overall game idea! Things were so fast on my computer that I really could not grasp what was going on, and felt like timing my jumps was a game of luck, though. You said it's your first 2D game in Unity, right? If so, I'm curious if you've heard of and/or used something called delta time. If you haven't, it's something that is very helpful for keeping a game's speed of doing things consistent regardless of frame rate. If you have already heard of/used it, then ignore me. However, that aside, I do like this game's look, though I agree with the person below about the repeating textures - while I love the colours and the textures, it did start to hurt my eyes after a little while of playing. Nice work! :D

As short as the game demo is, I can absolutely see the potential here for this to be fleshed out further! I can definitely imagine this being a fast gameplay experience, either with long levels of wild timing of various shots (maybe even using different guns, with different fire rates and limited ammo counts), or lots of short-burst levels for the player to rapid-fire play through. You definitely have a neat concept here, so keep going with it if you feel up to it! Nice job so far! :D

The idea behind the game was pretty neat, though I personally didn't like the idea of missiles being what hit the planes. Something like birds, stray balloons, or lightning strikes would have felt like they made more sense, since a missile would likely down a plane in one hit. I did like some of the sound design choices, though! Nice work!

Thank you very much, I appreciate you checking it out and I'm glad you liked it! I'm glad that the story-telling and atmosphere are coming across nicely! :D

I'm a sucker for this kind of toilet humour, so I'll start off by saying I definitely liked and was entertained by the different names for the farts. Added a bit of spice to the situation! I wasn't always good at being able to remember what names indicated what sizes of fart, though. However, found it very funny to realise that I quickly got good at manoeuvring myself as I farted to be just sure that another employee was in the line of sight of someone staring right at me when the load dropped. Could make for an entertaining joke game if expanded upon! Nice work!

Really liked the game's aesthetics when it came to the wand's various projectile attacks! Each one looked really nice and felt pretty unique. I will say it seemed like I managed to kill off every enemy in the level quite quickly by rapid-fire clicking, though, and after I looked around for a while I couldn't really find much else to do and had to shut the game down. There is potential for something like this to be expanded on if you wanted, though - some good sound design would go far for a game featuring magic like this, and I could imagine story progression of the wizard still not learning to control the wand, but "learning" what it's most likely to switch to next and how to plan ahead for that until they can replace it. Nice job!

I could write a fairly large paragraph here, but I read Virtual Turtle's comment before writing mine, and I think I can second a lot of their feedback! I was confused at not being able to toggle the out of control mode, and I think that a bit more player feedback for both taking and dealing damage would really benefit the game. For example, maybe some hit sounds! And I agree with the attack not feeling quite powerful enough - a lot of the purple enemies spawned for me, and I couldn't keep up with the damage they dealt unless I continually forced myself into the out of control mode. I did try to employ your mentioned strategy of leaving Kido in a corner, however I still found myself dying to not being able to kill enough enemies in time. :P I really do like the implied character dynamics between the player and Kido, though, and could see an interesting story being made of it! And I also really like the visual effects being used here, they look pretty dang unique between the tentacle-like attacks and Kido's sparkly glowing beauty! You could very easily have something great here, so if you want to keep working on it, I encourage you to do so! :D Nice job!

This game's style and concept seem quite interesting to me, but unfortunately I never managed to quite play past seven points. During the control switch event, I didn't get enough time to register what I was reading on the screen or figure out what the control had switched to before I'd die to whatever obstacle was ahead. Similarly with the screen flip, the combination of the strong camera shake and the flipped screen made it difficult for my brain to actually catch up with what was going on, and I died very quickly there, too. I do like this game's pretty minimal art style, however, and the idea of a random-events runner is a gameplay idea I could totally get behind! Just needs a bit more time and work to make it playable for me, personally, I'm afraid. Neat game!